On Monday, Sept. 27, in the early morning hours, something special happened along the Texas Gulf Coast. The heat of the summer was no more. Gone, just like that, one day to the next.

After months of relentless heat, natural air conditioning has replaced 82 degrees at 8 a.m. I love it, and I know many of you do, too, because on that special morning my Facebook page was filled with messages about the cool weather, as if the prisoners were suddenly released from their air-conditioned cells.

I love the Gulf Coast, and really don’t mind the heat and humidity, otherwise I would have moved by now. But after five months of it, it’s time for some fall weather. And, here it is for a long time.

And, to make your day even better, listen to this. No hurricanes or tropical storms this year, the second year in a row. Sure, we got a bunch of rain from storms that landed somewhere else, but that’s not a bad tradeoff. I’d rather get a lot of rain than the risk of a direct hit or even getting side-swiped by a passing storm.

All in all, it was a very good summer, aside from the 90-degree-plus daily heat
and all that other expected stuff. And now we go into seven months of light temps, with a few days of cold here and there.

That’s where the problem lies – the cold. I don’t like it, not even for a few days. I moved here in 1979 to get away from all that cold. To me, 76 at night is cold with the fan on medium, so when we’re talking about 40s or even lower, I need heat.

But that doesn’t happen all that often. Most of the time during non-hurricane months, I love to listen to my air conditioner and hear absolutely – nothing. It’s off and not sucking all that power.

Every now and then we get a little cold spell accompanied by a heavy snowfall, like on Christmas Eve, 2005. That was spectacular.

My kids were running around in the snow, making snow angels, having a great time.
My daughter said the snow is the best Christmas present ever. Had I known that, I would not have dished out all that money for the other presents.

The nice thing about snow here is that it happens rarely, and when it does, it goes away quickly, unlike on the East Coast, where I spent a lot of my childhood and young adulthood.

One time I parked my car on the street, and a major snowstorm brought the city to practically a standstill for three days. On the third day, I dug my car out from under the snow and found a parking ticket on the windshield.

I headed out to Texas shortly after. Yes, I did pay the ticket. Back in those days it was just $27.

Here I am, sitting on my back porch, enjoying free air conditioning and sipping on decaffeinated coffee. Hold on, I love this weather but not the porch. Who messed it up since May?